Maiden of the Mirthless Smile
Motivation: Spit on the ashes of Creation Caste: Dusk Anima Banner: twisted humanoid shapes in various dynamic poses of agony flicker and writhe around the Even as a toddler, there was something indeterminately wrong about Shanku Kenda. Born in the outskirts of Thorns, the pampered youngest daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, she would stare at her slave nanny like she stared at her toys. As soon as she could walk, her parents began to find small animals she had captured and toyed with, often still alive with various organs half removed. First it was mice and cats. Then her brother went missing, only six at the time and scarcely a year older than her. He was never found. But she learned it wasn’t that anatomy itself interested her. She wasn’t fascinated by how things worked. It was their reaction to pain. Kenda’s nanny was the next to disappear when the girl 12 (and strong enough to carry out the murder). Kenda’s parents never suspected. They underestimated her and bought her pretty dresses that she dutifully wore and learned to clean the bloodstains from. Fooling them became a game, and she planned a thousand different murders for them that she managed to avoid only by venting her growing resentment on other prey. In adolescence, she heard stories of the conquest of Thorns and the Deathlord who now reigned there, and in those stories, she finally found a hope bigger than her next kill. One night, Kenda decided it was time and butchered her family. Her mother was the last to die with a look of astonished horror on her face that makes the Maiden giggle to this day. After setting fire to her childhood home, the gawky teenager set out to find the Deathlord who would become her master. He sensed her from afar and was intrigued at this child who strode into darkness unafraid and unburdened by conscience. Then he found something else, something remarkable. The Neverborn already spoke to her. The hissing murmur of their hate echoed in her head, faintly but undeniably. Her Essence bore no sign of ghost ancestry or necromantic contamination, leaving him at a loss to explain her communion, but he was not about to argue with an obvious sign from his masters. He met her personally before she reached the edge of his domain, ordering her stop and speak with him lest she be destroyed. In the face of this great and terrible horror that was neither so terrible nor great as she had hoped in her dreams, Kenda smiled her perfect smile and walked on until his glance seized her heart and dropped her in a convulsing heap. Marveling at her dedication, if not so much at her prudence, the Deathlord rescued her on the brink of her last heartbeat with the offer of Exaltation. The tainted power slid into her soul as neatly as if it had been crafted for the purpose. Since that night, she has served as the least subtle instrument of the Mask of Winter’s will, his mailed fist to crush all who would gainsay him. even If rash at times and seldom sees the long-term benefit in postponing her violence, he cannot fault her zeal. The time will almost certainly come when the Deathlord must punish her failure with torments even she cannot imagine, but the withered vestiges of his compassion hope that time is yet far off. He also fears the Neverborn have plans for the Maiden that they have not shared with him, plans that may not even involve him. Such plans cannot be good for anyone.